Eight Feet Deep

This Plame, CIA leak, treason, cluster f**k, whatever you want to call it seems to suck everyone near it inside its vortex like a hopped-up storm sewer. Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post-Woodstein-Watergate fame, is the latest.

I don’t know what to think about his revelations that he apparently heard about Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent before everyone else. Or the fact that he failed to inform his superiors at the paper. Having been a newspaper reporter I can definitely think of reasons not to tell the editors something right away. The reason? They wanted it yesterday and your info may be waaaaaaaaaaay premature and you might slither over the ends of the earths from now until retirement and still not find any proof of the BIG STORY. Thus, the editors will not smile upon you.

But it’s a bit curious that Woodward waited so long to tell and his books about the Bush presidency have been as if Bob had planted a hidden camera in one of GW’s eyebrows. He gotta lotta access is what I’m saying.

I’m still willing to give Woodward the benefit of the doubt. I probably do that more with reporters than I should but I was one, still am occasionally, and I see that they get piled on more due to expediency and spin rather than cold, hard facts. It seems the blogosphere’s big game is to pile on reporters. Some of this piling on comes from people who only regurgitate what has been regurgitated quite a few times removed that day.

I still think it is rather humorous how journalists are second-guessed at every turn by those who would be offended and even outraged if someone questioned the motives or methods of their occupation.

“That plumber should have used at least a 3/4-inch stilson wrench on that fixture!”
“The yard man just used a broom to sweep away the leaves on one section of the sidewalk instead of the leaf blower. How dare he!”
“My psychiatrist should have asked me about my mother!”
“My bartender only gave me a shot of tequila instead of a shot and a half!”

Well, I guess everybody has something to bitch about with people in every profession. The point is that journalists deal with a commodity much different and vastly more subjective than using the right wrench or a leaf blower. That would be information.

Journalists aren’t paid well as a rule. They are second-guessed at every turn by the public and brow-beaten by editors who think their title imparts a knowledge that is as imaginary as your little invisible childhood friend Benny (or my case an invisible apostle Peter). But so many expect perfection from those journalists and it is a standard never to be attained. Is something just a little wrong with this picture?

It would come as a surprise to me if I find myself alive 50 years from now. That is because I would be just a little more than 100 years old. That isn’t impossible, just unlikely. I do want to make the best of those years past 50 however. And I don’t think that includes sitting at the computer doing software things for almost five hours.

Basically what happened is that I upgraded my operating system a few weeks ago. I began having more problems than I ever had before, so I decided to do a total installation of the OS this morning. If I had a little more physical pain the task would have been slightly more uncomfortable than having a tooth filled without novacain.

I am convinced that the people who design software stay up late at night trying to devise methods leading to befuddlement and eventually rage for those who use their products. I am not a patient man and it seems the older I get the less patience I have. That kind of makes me wonder if I will reach a point in life where I have absolutely no patience at all?

“Here check my groceries out you young whippersnapper before I beat you to oatmeal consistency with my cane!” I can just imagine saying. God help the motoring public if that happens. An old man full of rage who can’t drive for shit.

Perhaps I have wandered over the yellow line a bit but I just feel I could be doing so much more than spending hours on end installing and uninstalling computer programs. Which reminds me, I still need to download WMP and Adobe Acrobat. So I’ll say: “Ta.” And stay out of my way when you see me on the roadway. Time’s a-wasting.

Sometimes I like to cast my lazy eye toward news in the places we don’t often hear from. You can learn a lot by doing that such as this VOTER FRAUD ALERT!!! courtesy of The Stowe Reporter in Stowe, Vt. It seems plans to renovate the Akeley Memorial building — a city office building from best I can tell — failed by a suspicious two votes.

“I a’m very discouraged this morning because obviously the election has been compromised,” Town Clerk Alison Kaiser said Wednesday.

Apparently someone is either bad with math there or someone is up to some shenanigans.

“Election workers checked and rechecked, but came up with the same numbers: 909 voters, 912 ballots cast. It is very unlikely that three people passed by the two voter-registry tables and cast ballots, election officials said. A more logical explanation is that three people were mistakenly given an extra ballot, used it, and told no one.” the Stowe Reporter article said.

I’m not totally sure what’s up with this picture from the Tobacco Valley News in Eureka, Mont. This is how the caption reads:

“Larry Driver, a carpenter with Burton Construction of Spokane, rivets planks into place at the Murphy Lake Ranger Station where their company is in charge of supervising the station’s’s expansion.”

Maybe I’m mistaken but it looks like a little grabassing going on to me. You two kids get back to work and finish riveting those planks or you’ll start paying me an allowance!

From the Mountain Home News in Mountain Home, Idaho. Well, just a bit of confusion. Granted, at more than 11,000 people, Mountain Home is not as small as say Sacul, Texas, or Tick Fever, Ark. But do you really think this is necessary:

“The Mountain Home City Council formally approved the creation of the new Urban Renewal District, after creating at its previous meeting the Urban Renewal District and appointing its commissioners.”

Next week look for the council to approve appointment of the commissioners for the new Urban Renewal District after formally approving the creation of the Urban Renewal District during the past week, one week after creating the Urban Renewal District.

There is just too much information out there in the world. It’s going to make my head explode. I’m sure you will read about it.

This is not the real Saleah. It is another dog that looks like Saleah and a rather pensive looking pooch at that.
There is a little good news to report on this cool and windy Wednesday. Saleah, a rambunctious chocolate lab, is back home with its family after its big adventure in Mr. EFD’s neighborhood.

I was out for a walk this morning when I found Saleah. I had just encountered the grouchy, shaggy, black dog that hangs out on Sixth Street. That mutt had barked at a safe distance (for the dog, it really is a bit of a wus)from me and each time it barked I would reply: “Shut up!” It didn’t listen to me of course. Just down the street I spotted this pretty chocolate lab looking at me. It was wagging its tail and then came running toward me and jumped up on me repeatedly as if it expected me to lead it in a tango.

This pooch had a collar and tags. But I had a Charles Dickens of a time getting it to sit still. I finally ordered it to “sit” and “stay” long enough to find a phone number on the tags. Good fortune raised its head a tad more in that I was able to actually read the phone number without my glasses, which I do not carry on my daily walks. I called the number. But got a recording.

I really wasn’t sure what to do with this dog. I told the recording that I would try to get the dog to come home with me so the people with whom it was associated could pick it up. The dog was following me when it wasn’t running at various shadows and peeing on every third bush.

We got to some kind of office and this woman had pulled up with an elderly woman in a van. They appeared to expect me to control my dog, which I tried to explain through rolled up windows that it wasn’t my dog. I suppose the woman driving was a bit leery because I had on a black sweatshirt with a hood and was wearing sunglasses, and was perhaps appearing a little too much like that police sketch of the Unabomber. I got the dog to come along though.

Fortunately, Saleah’s friend called me back in a couple of minutes. He said that he was just leaving work and could meet me at the intersection of North and Seventh streets in about five minutes. And he told me the dog’s name was Saleah, which I could see on the tags but didn’t know how to pronounce it.

It was rather difficult getting Saleah to stay but the fellow showed up and thus united were a boy and his dog. You may now wipe your eyes and blow your nose.

When I was younger I was in kind of a weird denial about feeling good when performing benevolent acts. It’s a rather complicated issue and I will not delve into it here. But at some point in time I felt it was okay to feel good about such deeds. You can feel all warm and tingly while helping out someone or something. A license for a little taste of selfishness. Heck of deal! So reuniting Saleah and its dude made my day. In the words of that great prophet James Brown: “I feel good.”

Using a six-shooter in knee-level warfare can be considered rather risky.
Since the Iraq war began I have listened, trying to keep from sometimes yelling inappropriately, whenever I heard the president’s propagandists saying that critics against the war were unpatriotic or traitorous. Now since the Bush administration is largely in the crapper, President GW is saying that himself to the American public. If the polls are right and since so many polls say the same thing, I suspect that the majority of the public recognizes a snake oil salesman even if he’s dressed up like a pig. Huh? Oh sorry. My metaphors were taken away and tortured by Dick Cheney. Or was it another Dick. Who knows?

I don’t know about you folks but I have had just about enough of people telling me I am a traitor or I am unpatriotic because I don’t think we should’ve gone off to invade Iraq. And that goes for Commander-in-chief (CinC) Shrub as well!

Such a cheap political ploy which actually encourages the degradation of our First Amendment rights is bad enough. But one facet of this sorry spectacle that I have not heard raised by punditry, port and starboard, is that implying such dissent hurts the troops can hurt the troops even more than the anti-war sentiments.

Basically, the Sean Hannitys and Rush Limbergers as well as the Shrub Bushers are insulting U.S. military personnel by saying they can’t handle dissent. The country has come a long way since Vietnam in that the public can understand that the military has a job to do. Not everyone loves the military. But there is no big festering hatred of the troops among the many war critics.

Bush’s argument says to the U.S. service men and women: “You can’t handle the truth!” And that’s doing them a big disservice even though some of them are still in their teens. And can’t drink. And can still get killed fighting in service of their country.

Ours is not an army (or Navy or Marines or Air Force or Coast Guard) of babies. These troops hear a lot of things they don’t want to hear every day from their superiors. So I don’t think the truth is going to mortally wound them.